She enrolled at the University of Minnesota and earned money by working as a waitress (“I wasn’t a very good one — I was always forgetting things”) and doing some modeling for local businesses, including Target and Marshall Fields.

A scout from a modeling agency saw her work and got in touch. “I’ve been looking for models for the Asian market,” she said. “I can get you great work in Hong Kong.” Young, naive, and adventurous, Nomi dropped out of school and was on her first international flight, to Hong Kong, a few weeks later.

The agency was well-recognized, and she was picked up at the airport and housed in an apartment with two other girls. “We had a nice international group,” Nomi recalls. “There were different types of work: print ads, catalogs, billboards.”

Despite her half-Asian ancestry, Nomi had no connection to East Asia or its culture. “Fortunately, since Hong Kong had been a British colony, everyone spoke English. The city is on hills, and I still remember riding the escalator up the hill and marveling at the scenery. But everything was very strange — the smells, the hard mattresses, the food. It wasn’t shocking, but it was very different. I remember once being in Shanghai and being packed into a bus. I had never experienced that sheer density of human beings!”

She made great money, and for the next year and a half, worked for well-known brands like Shiseido. She also made many great friends. “It’s a huge myth that models are one-dimensional people,” she says. “Most of the women I worked with were, aside from being genuinely caring friends, entrepreneurial people who went on to start their own businesses in the industry. Many are still my friends.”

Between her job and the salary, she found herself living a life that was far posher than the simple Midwestern lifestyle she’d grown up with. “The level of service in Asia — hotels, travel — is just next-level.”

Yet she never felt that modeling was her vocation, and she struggled with it. Her employers always made her feel uncomfortable about her weight. “I wasn’t overweight at all. I was thin.” But by modeling standards, she wasn’t thin enough. “Everything was always about how heavy I looked. I was constantly criticized. I was once featured on a billboard with a butterfly on my finger, and I asked, ‘Do I look heavy?’ They answered, ‘Well, just a little.’ I never had body issues going in, but while modeling, I always felt not quite good enough.”

Even her hair didn’t quite fit the bill. Her natural color is dark brown, which didn’t look Asian enough. She had to dye it black.

She was also intellectual and her work did not provide her with satisfaction.

“I had always loved school,” she says. “I missed it.” Spiritually inclined and not feeling at ease in her body, she began taking yoga classes with a swami. He advised her to drink lemon water every morning. Between his advice and trips to a bookstore, she began changing the way she ate, eschewing sugar, caffeine, and highly processed food.

Young expatriates in Hong Kong would often get together to socialize. One of the people in her circle was a young lawyer from a Moroccan family in Montreal named William Levy. They met at a birthday dinner party. “From the moment I met Nomi, I knew I wanted to marry her,” he says. “She has remarkable talents and interests. Whatever she sets her mind to, she excels! She is selfless, caring, authentic, and generous.” He eventually invited her out for an evening. Soon, their evenings out turned into real dates.

“You know, I’m Jewish,” he told her early on.

“That’s cool,” she answered, finding herself saying, “I’m actually planning to convert one day.”

“I’m not even sure where that came from,” Nomi says now. “I had read a book by Elie Wiesel that influenced me, and a book on Shabbos that I had taken out from the Hong Kong JCC library.” But as time went by, she found herself drawn more and more deeply to Judaism. “I had this positive feeling that propelled me forward, and I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. I think a lot came from the community aspect. I grew enamored with the Jewish community and felt connected to it.”

Her future husband wasn’t impressed by her professed desire to join the tribe. “I’m Sephardic, and we don’t accept converts,” he said. (That turned out not to be true in the Moroccan community.)

But the more Nomi learned, the more she wanted to convert. “I got the best advice of my life from a rabbi in Hong Kong,” she says. “He told me, ‘You can do a conversion here with Chabad, but if you want a conversion that will be more universally accepted, you should go to a beis din in the US.’ He told me I needed to see a real Jewish community to understand what being Jewish iss about.”

Nomi and William had begun dating in March, met each other’s families in June and July, and by September, Nomi packed her bags and moved to Los Angeles, armed with a few names. William kept his home in Hong Kong, but he came with her to help her find a place to live. On their first day there, they stopped at a Coffee Bean for breakfast. They were standing in line, discussing their situation, when a young man standing next to them said, “You guys have to meet my mother!”

He insisted they come home with him and introduced them to his mom, Elizabeth Kraft.

Mrs. Kraft is a baalas teshuvah who had also once been in the fashion business, working as a buyer for 350 stores. Both women had been immersed in a world of materialism and had reached the conclusion that it was ultimately not meaningful. “You realize that world is empty and phony,” Mrs. Kraft says. “You start to ask yourself, Is this all there is? It’s like eating too many sweets — after a while, you’re sick of them.”

The Krafts became Nomi’s next set of surrogate parents. She found a guest house nearby to rent and spent almost every Shabbos with them. She became close to another family, who offered her a job working in the office of the husband’s jewelry business. “Everyone here loved Nomi,” Mrs. Kraft says. “We saw she was an incredible person — so bright, with beautiful middos and such sincerity. I remember once, when William came to visit, he missed davening Minchah. Nomi was disturbed. She said to me, ‘How can I commit to covering my hair if my husband doesn’t daven Minchah?’”

William was based in Hong Kong, but would visit every few months. “Every time he came, I was a little more frum,” Nomi says with a laugh. “One time, he found I’d stopped wearing pants; the next time, he found me in long sleeves. I was actually becoming more religious than him. But I didn’t want to convert or get married if I didn’t do it right.” It got to the point where they sought advice from a marriage counselor, who suggested that Nomi should just compromise. She refused. William admitted, “I do want to be religious. I’m just moving much slower.”

She spent a year learning with Mrs. Kraft and others before her conversion. As her Jewish “mother,” Mrs. Kraft accompanied her to the conversion, and then became her kallah teacher. The Krafts hosted a henna party for Nomi before the wedding, according to William’s family’s Moroccan customs, and Rabbi Kraft served as her mesader kiddushin.

Mrs. Kraft was even the one to give Nomi her Jewish name. “In my head, she was always Naomi, I don’t know why,” Mrs. Kraft says. “One night we were playing Scrabble and I found myself saying to someone, ‘Here, give these tiles to Nomi.’ And it stuck!” (She had previously been called Jessica.) Nomi says, “It just made sense, somehow, so I kept it. My husband still calls me Jess, and I use my English and Hebrew names together professionally, but everyone here in Israel knows me as Nomi.”

Coming Home on the Other Side of the World

Young and idealistic, Nomi and William — like so many newly married frum couples — decided they wanted to live in Eretz Yisrael for a year. Nomi, fresh from conversion and spiritually inspired, thought they should look for a chareidi neighborhood, but a wise friend counseled them otherwise. “You should go to Rechavia,” he said.

It didn’t initially strike a chord. But it was clearly meant to be, because soon after the wedding, when Nomi and William were in Hong Kong for a short stay, Nomi met a woman there who told her she was from Rechavia and passed her a real estate agent’s card.

It was the best choice for them: international, spiritually growing, but open-minded. “We fell in love with life in Israel and extended our stay for another year, which has now turned into twenty wonderful years,” William says. “Our four boys were born here.”

Wasn’t it hard to come to a new country? “Transformation is what I do best,” Nomi says with a smile. “I took an ulpan, and didn’t find the language so difficult. I could communicate in English with most people. I didn’t have children when I arrived, so it was easier to run around and get my bearings.”

Nor did she find it hard to be accepted in Israeli society as a convert. She says Israeli society is only judgmental if you let it feel that way. She and William are happy to allow each of their sons to connect to Judaism in his own way. The oldest is in bet medrash in Alon Shvut, and the youngest is still in a cheder in their neighborhood.

When the Levys settled in Eretz Yisrael, Nomi — who had always loved learning — was able to restart her interrupted college education, remotely finishing a degree in nutrition through the University of Western States in Portland. “Nomi has always been passionate about nutrition and healthy living,” William says. “She embodies the principles she advocates. Her friends and acquaintances seek her advice on nutrition and various aspects of life. She’s been my life coach since we met!”

Nomi came to the US in 2017 to train at the Duke University Integrative Medicine program, and is currently working on a doctorate in clinical nutrition through Notre Dame of Maryland.

After the training at Duke, she began working in nutrition education, doing one-on-one evaluations, often with people referred to her by their doctors. People bring her their lab results and their goals, and she helps them work out a plan. She also speaks at companies who want to encourage their employees to adopt healthier habits, and at continuing education forums, as well as running groups for clients seeking to improve their eating habits.

But she maintains that there’s too much pressure on girls to diet. “Often, girls come to me hoping to lose weight for shidduchim, but the goal with nutrition should not be about a perfect diet or reaching a perfect size. Weight is a symptom, not a goal. You can’t just look through a narrow lens! You have to look at the root cause of weight issues.”

In Asia, Nomi had some exposure to alternative forms of medicine, and still goes for acupuncture treatments from time to time. She integrates these different modalities into her approach. “Alternative medicine was the first medicine, up until the nineteenth century!” she says. “People traditionally used plants for healing, and Chinese medicine uses a tremendous number of plants. I’m not an herbalist or naturopath, but I received supervision from one, and studied herbal medicine and plant formulas.”

She also works with a doctor who treats chronic pain and inflammation, helping those patients make changes to their diets. She says over half of them lose weight and feel better simply through making adjustments to what they eat.

Yet she believes in seeing the big picture when it comes to eating, and not getting caught up in rigid guidelines. “You can have a slice of pizza or sushi once in a while,” she says. “A lot of people are hung up on organic food, and while it is important to choose clean food, you’re probably better off eating a nonorganic apple than a highly processed ‘organic’ granola bar.”

The trick is to avoid processed foods and too many refined carbs, and consume mostly whole foods: protein, legumes, grains, fruits, and vegetables. When clients protest, “But it takes so much time!” she responds, “Yes — food takes time!

“I cook three meals a day, and I don’t love the kitchen,” Nomi says. “I’m a good cook, but I’d rather be reading books on biochemistry. But some people don’t realize how much effort it takes to be on top of your health. And as you get older, you need to do more, not less.”

Exercise is another crucial piece of a healthy lifestyle. Walk, run, work on your balance and reflexes, try weights or endurance running. Nomi was a competitive sprinter in high school and does her early-morning runs every day. People with high sugar should be aware that glucose is used by the muscles, so if you want to bring down your sugar levels, exercise! “If you want to give a gift to a parent who has everything, give them sessions with a personal trainer,” Nomi says.

But rest — a good night’s sleep — is also essential for health. It keeps hormone levels balanced and increases energy and focus. Nomi admits that she’s often in bed before her teenaged children. “Health is about increasing your energy and focus so that you can best accomplish your tafkid in life.”

The Missing Piece of the Puzzle

It’s not easy to grow up disconnected from your birth family, knowing they exist and wondering what they’re like, yet having no way to connect with them. But almost two years ago, Nomi found the missing piece of her family puzzle.

She decided to do an Ancestry DNA test. (She had wondered if she might have some Ashkenazic Jewish origins on her father’s side that prompted her attraction to Judaism.) She’d always assumed that her father’s side was English, but the test gave him Scandinavian roots. It was no surprise to be told that she was Korean on her mother’s side.

But the test also gave her the name of some Korean people who were close genetic matches, close enough to be cousins. Nomi reached out to a few of them. To her astonishment, they messaged back immediately. “Forty-eight hours later, I was on a Zoom call with ten cousins, three uncles, and an aunt!”

Her birth family had been looking for her for years and were dying to meet her. Two months later, she flew to Los Angeles for a family reunion, with relatives coming from Texas and Alaska to join. Nomi’s younger brother, now a professor of philosophy at the University of Tampa, joined her to meet their long-lost family.

“My brother and I arrived at my uncle’s house before he and his family did, because they got stuck in L.A. traffic after picking someone up,” she recounts. “But we found a big ‘Welcome home, we missed you!’ sign. We let ourselves into their spotless house, taking off our shoes as is the custom. When they arrived, the connection I felt with everyone was genuine and instant.” The family was extremely respectful of Nomi’s kashrus restrictions, bending over backward to get her the food she needed.

October 7 happened after that, restricting travel, but last year, Nomi was able to enjoy another reunion with both her biological family and her adoptive family. “I discovered that my birth family are wonderful people,” she says. “They’re nice, they’re centered, they’re high achievers, they have strong Christian values.” [Many Koreans became Christians due to proselytizing in their country, starting at the end of the 19th century.]

Nomi saw how much she shared with her birth family: generosity, a strong work ethic, a taste for nice things, a quirky sense of humor, even a musical side. “The first time I met my uncles, they were doing karaoke, like they were in a Korean sitcom,” she laughs. “I saw that the values that endeared the Jewish community to me are very much the values of my birth family, like spirituality and a strong sense of family connection. Koreans are made up of a group of seven tribes; my mother was part of the Cho tribe.

“Like Jews, Koreans are very resilient, because they lived with war on all sides for centuries. And like Israel, Korea began to boom in the 1970s.”

After years of feeling like she’d been rejected and didn’t belong anywhere, she found the encounters with her family very healing. “You can’t close that hole, but you can fill it,” she says.

In the end, she has been able to embrace her multiple families and origins, often hosting her adoptive parents in Israel and staying in touch with her Korean relatives, some of whom have also visited her in Rechavia. “It took years to develop the self-confidence to feel like I’m okay as I am,” she says. “Some people may look down at me for being a convert or for having Asian roots. Yet one friend of mine who’s an Asian convert told me that I don’t count as Asian, because I was raised as an American! So clearly, I won’t be Asian enough for some, and I won’t be Jewish enough for others.

“I’ve learned to be happy with the person I am. You can never please everybody, so I stopped listening to other voices. I have to find my own way in Judaism and, like everybody else, try to keep growing al pi darko.”

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 967)